{"id":23014,"date":"2015-10-01T00:01:17","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T07:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=23014"},"modified":"2015-10-01T00:01:17","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T07:01:17","slug":"breathing-lake-michigan-ludington-to-traverse-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/breathing-lake-michigan-ludington-to-traverse-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Breathing Lake Michigan — Ludington to Traverse City"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"View<\/a>
This 10,000-year-old dune at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore near Traverse City rises about 600 feet above Lake Michigan. A sign discourages visitors from doing what this man is doing — descending the hillside. Climbing back up takes even the fittest of climbers a couple of hours. Notice the curved horizon. The lake is big, 100 miles across, and it seems my camera’s wide lens captured the Earth’s curve — or did it distort an otherwise flat horizon? Photo by Barbara Newhall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

The best\u00a0thing about going on a road trip all by yourself is — you can brake for a photo op any time you want.<\/p>\n

I invited my husband along on my 12-day sojourn to my home state of Michigan, but Jon was closing in on the final grafs of the final chapter of his thriller novel, and he was eager to stay home and get\u00a0the job done.<\/p>\n

\"Barbara
Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And so, \u00a0a GPS was\u00a0my only company as I drove my rental car\u00a0up and down and across Michigan’s lower peninsula.\u00a0It was wonderful.<\/p>\n

Being on my own meant I could linger over cups of\u00a0coffee and conversation with cousins and friends.<\/p>\n

It also meant that I could ignore my GPS and exit\u00a0the freeway any time\u00a0I wanted. I could brake for windmills, corn fields, cumulus clouds, and, of course, the prettiest lake in the world — Lake Michigan.<\/p>\n

I could breathe the air coming in off the lake.<\/p>\n

Never seen Lake Michigan? Never walked its sandy beaches\u00a0or breathed its watery breezes? Put\u00a0it on your bucket list. You’re in for a treat.<\/p>\n

Here are\u00a0a few of the Lake Michigan photos I grabbed along the way with my trusty point-and-shoot.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>
Small trees and dune grass help hold the\u00a0fragile\u00a0sandy dunes in place at Sleeping Bear. Photo by Barbara Newhall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sunset<\/a>
Sunset light reflects on a channel leading into Lake Michigan near Ludington. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Trees<\/a>
I didn’t colorize this photo. Honest. . .<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Beach<\/a>
. . . . or this one either.\u00a0Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Footprints<\/a>
Lots of people had walked the shore of the Big Lake ahead of me that day. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Barbara<\/a>
And one\u00a0of them took time out from sunset watching to snap\u00a0this photo. Barbara Newhall\u00a0photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More travel stories at “The Funky Charms of East Austin, Texas”<\/a> and “For China’s Young Fashionistas, the Cultural Revolution Is So Over.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Sunset<\/a><\/p>\n

Traveling solo along Lake Michigan meant I could linger over coffee with friends. It also meant I could ignore my GPS and exit the freeway on a whim. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[34,383,1557,214,1540,1558,33,1559],"class_list":["post-23014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-dont-miss","tag-lake-michigan","tag-ludington","tag-michigan","tag-road-trip","tag-sleeping-bear-dunes","tag-travel","tag-traverse-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}